Ionic meter
Encyclopedia
The ionic is a four-syllable
metrical unit
(metron) of light-light-heavy-heavy
(‿ ‿ — —) that occurs in ancient Greek and Latin poetry
. Like the choriamb
, in classical quantitative verse the ionic never appears in passages meant to be spoken rather than sung. "Ionics" may refer inclusively to poetry composed of the various metrical units of the same total quantitative length (six morae
) that may be used in combination with ionics proper: ionics, choriambs, and anaclast
s. Equivalent forms exist in English poetry
.
(frg. 46 PMG = 34 D), Sappho
(frg. 134-135 LP), Alcaeus
(frg. 10B LP), Anacreon
, and the Greek dramatists, including the first choral song of Aeschylus
' Persians
and in Euripides
' Bacchae
. Like dochmiacs, the ionic meter is characteristically experienced as expressing excitability. The form has been linked tentatively with the worship of Cybele
and Dionysus
.
An example of pure ionics in Latin poetry is found as a "metrical experiment" in the Odes of Horace
, Book 3, poem 12, which draws on Archilochus
and Sappho for its content and utilizes a metrical line that appears in a fragment of Alcaeus.
The anacreontic
may be analyzed as a syncopated form of ionics, ‿ ‿ — ‿ — ‿— —. The galliambic
is a catalectic
ionic tetrameter
; Catullus
used galliambic meter for his Carmen 63 on the mythological figure Attis
, a portion of which is spoken in the person of Cybele.
's "misunderstanding of metre" and desire to balance metrical units with their mirror images.
s are closely related, as evidenced by the polyschematist unit x x — x —‿ ‿ — (with x representing a syllable
that may be heavy or light).
The sotadeion, named for the Hellenistic poet Sotades
, has been classified as ionic a maiore by Hephaestion and by M. L. West. It "enjoyed a considerable vogue for several centuries, being associated with low-class entertainment, especially of a salacious sort, though also used for moralizing and other serious verse." Among those poets who adopted it was Ennius
.
composed in a combination of anacreontics and ionics. An example of English ionics occurs in lines 4 and 5 of the following lyric
stanza
by Thomas Hardy
:
Compare W. B. Yeats, "And the white breast of the dim sea" ("Who will go drive with Fergus now?" from The Countess Cathleen
) and Tennyson
, "In Memoriam
," "When the blood creeps and the nerves prick" (compare pyrrhic
).
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
metrical unit
Meter (poetry)
In poetry, metre is the basic rhythmic structure of a verse or lines in verse. Many traditional verse forms prescribe a specific verse metre, or a certain set of metres alternating in a particular order. The study of metres and forms of versification is known as prosody...
(metron) of light-light-heavy-heavy
Syllable weight
In linguistics, syllable weight is the concept that syllables pattern together according to the number and/or duration of segments in the rime. In classical poetry, both Greek and Latin, distinctions of syllable weight were fundamental to the meter of the line....
(‿ ‿ — —) that occurs in ancient Greek and Latin poetry
Latin poetry
The history of Latin poetry can be understood as the adaptation of Greek models. The verse comedies of Plautus are the earliest Latin literature that has survived, composed around 205-184 BC, yet the start of Latin literature is conventionally dated to the first performance of a play in verse by a...
. Like the choriamb
Choriamb
In Greek and Latin poetry, a choriamb is a metron consisting of four syllables in the pattern long-short-short-long , that is, a trochee alternating with an iamb. Choriambs are one of the two basic metra that do not occur in spoken verse, as distinguished from true lyric or sung verse...
, in classical quantitative verse the ionic never appears in passages meant to be spoken rather than sung. "Ionics" may refer inclusively to poetry composed of the various metrical units of the same total quantitative length (six morae
Mora (linguistics)
Mora is a unit in phonology that determines syllable weight, which in some languages determines stress or timing. As with many technical linguistic terms, the definition of a mora varies. Perhaps the most succinct working definition was provided by the American linguist James D...
) that may be used in combination with ionics proper: ionics, choriambs, and anaclast
Inversion (prosody)
In prosody the Inversion of a foot, or anaclasis, is the reversal of the order of its elements. For example, in English Accentual-syllabic verse the most common inversion by far is the reversal of the first iamb in a line of verse, thus resulting in a trochee...
s. Equivalent forms exist in English poetry
English poetry
The history of English poetry stretches from the middle of the 7th century to the present day. Over this period, English poets have written some of the most enduring poems in Western culture, and the language and its poetry have spread around the globe. Consequently, the term English poetry is...
.
Examples of ionics
Pure examples of Ionic metrical structures occur in verse by AlcmanAlcman
Alcman was an Ancient Greek choral lyric poet from Sparta. He is the earliest representative of the Alexandrinian canon of the nine lyric poets.- Family :...
(frg. 46 PMG = 34 D), Sappho
Sappho
Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet, born on the island of Lesbos. Later Greeks included her in the list of nine lyric poets. Her birth was sometime between 630 and 612 BC, and it is said that she died around 570 BC, but little is known for certain about her life...
(frg. 134-135 LP), Alcaeus
Alcaeus
Alcaeus may refer to:*Alcaeus , a writer of ten plays of the Old Comedy.*Alcaeus , one of several figures of this name in Greek mythology*12607 Alcaeus - a main belt asteroid...
(frg. 10B LP), Anacreon
Anacreon
Anacreon was a Greek lyric poet, notable for his drinking songs and hymns. Later Greeks included him in the canonical list of nine lyric poets.- Life :...
, and the Greek dramatists, including the first choral song of Aeschylus
Aeschylus
Aeschylus was the first of the three ancient Greek tragedians whose work has survived, the others being Sophocles and Euripides, and is often described as the father of tragedy. His name derives from the Greek word aiskhos , meaning "shame"...
' Persians
The Persians
The Persians is an Athenian tragedy by the ancient Greek playwright Aeschylus. First produced in 472 BCE, it is the oldest surviving play in the history of theatre...
and in Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
' Bacchae
The Bacchae
The Bacchae is an ancient Greek tragedy by the Athenian playwright Euripides, during his final years in Macedon, at the court of Archelaus I of Macedon. It premiered posthumously at the Theatre of Dionysus in 405 BC as part of a tetralogy that also included Iphigeneia at Aulis, and which...
. Like dochmiacs, the ionic meter is characteristically experienced as expressing excitability. The form has been linked tentatively with the worship of Cybele
Cybele
Cybele , was a Phrygian form of the Earth Mother or Great Mother. As with Greek Gaia , her Minoan equivalent Rhea and some aspects of Demeter, Cybele embodies the fertile Earth...
and Dionysus
Dionysus
Dionysus was the god of the grape harvest, winemaking and wine, of ritual madness and ecstasy in Greek mythology. His name in Linear B tablets shows he was worshipped from c. 1500—1100 BC by Mycenean Greeks: other traces of Dionysian-type cult have been found in ancient Minoan Crete...
.
An example of pure ionics in Latin poetry is found as a "metrical experiment" in the Odes of Horace
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus , known in the English-speaking world as Horace, was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus.-Life:...
, Book 3, poem 12, which draws on Archilochus
Archilochus
Archilochus, or, Archilochos While these have been the generally accepted dates since Felix Jacoby, "The Date of Archilochus," Classical Quarterly 35 97-109, some scholars disagree; Robin Lane Fox, for instance, in Travelling Heroes: Greeks and Their Myths in the Epic Age of Homer , p...
and Sappho for its content and utilizes a metrical line that appears in a fragment of Alcaeus.
The anacreontic
Anacreontics
Anacreontics are verses in a meter used by the Greek poet Anacreon in his poems dealing with love and wine. His later Greek imitators took up the same themes and used the Anacreontic meter...
may be analyzed as a syncopated form of ionics, ‿ ‿ — ‿ — ‿— —. The galliambic
Galliambic
Galliambic metre is constructed as shown below:˘ ˘ – ˘ – ˘ – –// ˘ ˘ – ˘ ˘ ˘ ˘ ×This metre, meant for the frenzied cult of the eastern goddess Cybele, is best known from its use in Catullus 63...
is a catalectic
Catalectic
A catalectic line is a metrically incomplete line of verse, lacking a syllable at the end or ending with an incomplete foot. One form of catalexis is headlessness, where the unstressed syllable is dropped from the beginning of the line....
ionic tetrameter
Tetrameter
Tetrameter: [ti'tramitə]; te·tram·e·ter; a verse of four measuresOrigin: early 17th century : from late Latin tetrametrus, originally neuter from Greek tetrametros 'having four measures,' from tetra- 'four' + metron 'measure'....
; Catullus
Catullus
Gaius Valerius Catullus was a Latin poet of the Republican period. His surviving works are still read widely, and continue to influence poetry and other forms of art.-Biography:...
used galliambic meter for his Carmen 63 on the mythological figure Attis
Attis
Attis was the consort of Cybele in Phrygian and Greek mythology. His priests were eunuchs, as explained by origin myths pertaining to Attis and castration...
, a portion of which is spoken in the person of Cybele.
Ionic a minore and a maiore
The "ionic" almost invariably refers to the basic metron ‿ ‿ — —, but this metron is also known by the fuller name ionic a minore in distinction to the rarely used ionic a maiore (— — ‿ ‿). Modern metricians generally consider the term ionic a maiore to be of little analytic use, a vestige of HephaestionHephaestion (grammarian)
Hephaestion was a grammarian of Alexandria who flourished in the age of the Antonines. He was the author of a manual of Greek metres, which is most valuable as the only complete treatise on the subject that has been preserved. The concluding chapter discusses the various kinds of poetical...
's "misunderstanding of metre" and desire to balance metrical units with their mirror images.
Polyschematist sequences
The Ionic and Aeolic meterAeolic verse
Aeolic verse is a classification of Ancient Greek lyric poetry referring to the distinct verse forms characteristic of the two great poets of Archaic Lesbos, Sappho and Alcaeus, who composed in their native Aeolic dialect...
s are closely related, as evidenced by the polyschematist unit x x — x —‿ ‿ — (with x representing a syllable
Syllable
A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds. For example, the word water is composed of two syllables: wa and ter. A syllable is typically made up of a syllable nucleus with optional initial and final margins .Syllables are often considered the phonological "building...
that may be heavy or light).
The sotadeion, named for the Hellenistic poet Sotades
Sotades
Sotades was an Ancient Greek poet.Sotades was born in Maroneia, either the one in Thrace, or in Crete. He was the chief representative of the writers of obscene and even pederastic satirical poems, called Kinaidoi, composed in the Ionic dialect and in the "sotadic" metre named after him...
, has been classified as ionic a maiore by Hephaestion and by M. L. West. It "enjoyed a considerable vogue for several centuries, being associated with low-class entertainment, especially of a salacious sort, though also used for moralizing and other serious verse." Among those poets who adopted it was Ennius
Ennius
Quintus Ennius was a writer during the period of the Roman Republic, and is often considered the father of Roman poetry. He was of Calabrian descent...
.
In English
In English poetry, Edward FitzgeraldEdward Fitzgerald
Edward Fitzgerald may refer to:* Lord Edward FitzGerald , Irish revolutionary*Edward Fitzgerald , Irish* Edward FitzGerald, 7th Duke of Leinster * Edward Fitzgerald...
composed in a combination of anacreontics and ionics. An example of English ionics occurs in lines 4 and 5 of the following lyric
Lyric poetry
Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat...
stanza
Stanza
In poetry, a stanza is a unit within a larger poem. In modern poetry, the term is often equivalent with strophe; in popular vocal music, a stanza is typically referred to as a "verse"...
by Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy, OM was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.While he regarded himself primarily as a...
:
- The pair seemed lovers, yet absorbed
- In mental scenes no longer orbed
- By love's young rays. Each countenance
-
- Às ìt slówlý, às ìt sádlý
- Caùght thè lámplíght's yèllòw glánce,
-
- Held in suspense a misery
- At things which had been or might be.
Compare W. B. Yeats, "And the white breast of the dim sea" ("Who will go drive with Fergus now?" from The Countess Cathleen
The countess cathleen
The Countess Cathleen is a verse drama by William Butler Yeats in blank verse . It was dedicated to Maud Gonne, Yeats' lifelong love.-Editions and revisions:...
) and Tennyson
Tennyson
Alfred, Lord Tennyson, the first Baron Tennyson, was an English poet.Tennyson may also refer to:-People:* Baron Tennyson, the barony itself** Alfred, Lord Tennyson , poet...
, "In Memoriam
In Memoriam A.H.H.
In Memoriam A.H.H. is a poem by the English poet Alfred, Lord Tennyson, completed in 1849. It is a requiem for the poet's Cambridge friend Arthur Henry Hallam, who died suddenly of a cerebral haemorrhage in Vienna in 1833...
," "When the blood creeps and the nerves prick" (compare pyrrhic
Pyrrhic
A pyrrhic is a metrical foot used in formal poetry. It consists of two unaccented, short syllables. It is also known as a dibrach.Tennyson used pyrrhics and spondees quite frequently, for example, in In Memoriam: "When the blood creeps and the nerves prick." "When the" and "and the" in the second...
).
External links
- Ionics, in Erling B. Holtsmark's Enchiridion of Metrics